Just released a new mod that aims to make eating more immersive and fun by replacing the instant effects of foods with various long term fortifications. There are no penalties for not eating or sleeping, only incentives to do so. As such, Immersive Inestibles is an alternative to traditional "needs" mods for roleplayers who want an immersive gameplay reason to eat and sleep but don't want to be forced to eat or worry about inventory management.

Here is a link: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71708/? and http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/files/file/1640-immersive-ingestibles/

Since this is an initial release, I am taking comments, bug reports, suggestions, requests, etc.


There are no scripts added by this mod. It should be safe to install, uninstall or upgrade on existing saves; however, it is imperative to make sure there are no active food or sleep effects on your character when installing, uninstalling or upgrading.

Detailed description is below:

Food now fortifies, instead of restoring attributes

In vanilla Skyrim, most food items provided instant restore health/stamina effects that were useless out of combat because of the rate those attributes regenerate. There was no gameplay incentive to eat out of combat, and eating during combat does not make sense (pardon me Mr. Draugr while I down six bowls of apple cabbage stew to get my health and stamina back). The few vanilla food items that did provide long term benefits tended to be overpowered, like vegetable soup that let you spam power attacks. All of that changes with Immersive Ingestibles.

Different types of foods provide different types of fortifications. For instance, cooked meats fortify health, and starchy foods like baked potatoes, bread and potato soup forty stamina. Most fortifications are between 10 and 20 points and last 3600 seconds (one hour real time). Most soups, stews and dumplings provide two fortification effects and one of those may fortify the regeneration rate of stamina or magicka. Since vanilla Skyrim reduces regeneration rates during combat, fortifying regeneraltion rates does not allow unlimited spamming of power attacks.

Food effects don't stack

In a further effort to achieve balance, the food effects in Immersive Ingestibles do not stack, so eating six bowls of vegetable soup in one sitting provides no additional benefits after the first bowl. But because of the variety of effects on different food item, there is a benefit to eating multiple different types of foods in one meal. The food effects in Immersive Ingestibles are new unique magic effects, so they do stack with alchemy and enchant, and do not compete directly with those skills, but rather supplement them.

Raw meats give you an upset stomach, unless you are an Orc, Argonian, Bosmer or Khajiit

Raw meats provide a small health fortification of 1-5 points, but also cause upset stomach (reduced stamina, generally between 2-20 points depending on the type of meat, and lasting 3,600 seconds). Chewing on a piece of raw leek after eating raw meat will counteract the upset stomach, while retaining the health benefit. Certain races (Orcs, Argonians, Bosmer and Khajiit) prefer to eat raw meats and instead of getting an upset stomach, they receive an additional health fortification of 8-12 points.

Sweets boost carry weight but make you weak to disease

Sweets provide a fortification to carry weight of about 25 points lasting 300 seconds realtime. But sweets are not terribly healthy and will give you a weakness to disease (75%) that lasts twice as long as the positive effects (600 seconds). The weakness to disease caused by sweets can be counteracted at any time after eating sweets by eating fresh fruits and vegetables, which will also provide a long lasting resistance to disease (an apple a day keeps the doctor away).

Alcohol has some interesting new effects . . .

Fans of spamming power attacks with vegetable soup may be happy to know that it's still possible by drinking mead, but not without some serious negative side effects. Ale and mead will restore 1 point of stamina per second for 900 seconds (2 points per second for Blackbriar Reserve), but have negative side effects (significantly reduced/stunted magicka regeneration and modest weakness to magic) that lasts 1,800 seconds. All effects of ale and mead (both positive and negative) are immediately counteracted by eating goat cheese after drinking ale or mead. Goat cheese also provides a modest resistance to poison lasting 3,600 seconds.

Wines will restore 1 point of magicka per second for 900 seconds (2 points per second for Colovian Brandy), but have negative side effects (significantly reduced stamina regeneration and modest weakness to physical damage implemented as a reduction to AR) that lasts 1,800 seconds.

All affects of wine and brandy (both positive and negative) are immediately counteracted by eating eider cheese after drinking wine or brandy. Eider cheese also provides a modest resistance to poison, lasting 3600 seconds.

Skooma is really bad for you!

Skooma has also been reworked to make it more like an illegal drug with strong positive and negative effects like in prior games. Skooma fortifies carry weight and stamina 50 points each for 300 seconds and restores stamina 2 points per second for 300 seconds, but reduces magicka regeneration by 200% for 7,200 seconds (two hours real time). Unlike alcoholic beverages, there is no way to counteract the effects of skooma.

Lore friendly Dragonborn Ingestibles

The Dragonborn Dunmer drinks (Sujamma, Shein, Mazte, and Flin) have been reworked to provide benefits and detriments patterned after the effects those drinks had in Morrowind that last 600 seconds. The prices have been increased accordingly. Ash yams also have been given a fortify magicka effect out of deference to the fortify intelligence effect they had in Morrowind. Ash yams in Morrowind also had a resist disease effect, so Immersive Ingestibles reproduces that as well.

Does not change Elsweyr Fondue

No changes have been made to Elsweyr Fondue or gourds. This is intentional. I may address Elsweyr Fondue in a future version of the mod, but for now I am leaving it alone. Gourds appear to be subject to some type of engine bug where giving them an effect with a duration messes with their value. Gourds don't seem very nutritional anyway, so I am just not going to touch them.

Sleep provides new benefits

Finally, additional incentives for sleeping have been added. Sleeping refreshes you, giving you energy to move better in armor and mental stamina to better resist magic. The rested bonus now includes 8% magic resistance and an additional 8 points AR for each piece of armor worn. The well-rested bonus now includes 12% magic resistance and an additional 12 points AR for each piece of armor worn.

Looks interesting but the link doesn't work.

Congratulations on your first mod, Turija! I will certainly try this in my next game.

Oops! Sorry, but thanks for letting me know. The link should work now.

Thanks! It started several weeks ago, while I was playing, I experienced my usual disappointment in the food options, and it finally dawned on me that I knew enough about the CK and xEdit to do something about it. At first, I had only planned to do a few tweaks for personal use, but as it grew, I decided to polish it up for release into the wild.

As I worked on it, your words from a bygone post came back to me. I remember a long time ago you saying that you would not mind eat/sleep mechanics if they were incentive based, rather than enforced with penalties. As my personal tweaking coalesced into a full fledged mod, I realized that I agreed with that approach. So, I guess you could say that one of your old posts was part of the inspiration for this mod.

Hey Turija congrads! Wow, it looks like you put a lot of work into this, I'll def check it out later when I'm gaming.